Current AffairsGovernment prepares legislation to assist excluded social groups

The Czech government has formally begun preparing new legislation, which
will assist socially disadvantaged groups in finding employment in Czech
businesses and public institutions. Presently, employers seeking to add
handicapped or homeless staff to their ranks do so without a precise legal
framework.

Photo: European Commission
The government is seeking to make it easier for both sides – businesses
and public institutions on the one hand, and members of disadvantaged
groups on the other – to operate within a framework that eases
discrimination and red tape in the employment sphere. The new plans would
create a formal “sociální podnikání” or “social enterprise”
scheme, in which employers would be offered incentives for accepting the
“risk” of bringing members of socially disadvantaged groups into their
ranks. According to Czech Television, only 200 businesses in the country
are presently fully open to employing people from these groups.

Petra Francová is the head of P3, a charity that seeks to expand
opportunities for socially disadvantaged people. She welcomed the
government’s latest steps towards reform:

“We consider this law to be important because it will state exactly what
a social enterprise or social entrepreneurship is, and it will create a
framework for this are of activities. We have been promoting this issue for
many years, but it is difficult when we try to gain any kind of advantages
for social enterprises. Usually, public institutions tell us that there is
presently no official definition, and that they don’t know what a social
enterprise is, and thus cannot provide any support. Our basic idea is that
reforms would help both the socially and physically disadvantaged.”

The government reforms would create formal categories of socially
disadvantaged and physically disadvantaged potential employees. It would
also assist employers in providing necessary assistance to those who may
require additional guidance and assistance in adapting to the working
environment. Petra Francová again:

Petra Francová, photo: archive of P3“Social enterprises can employ socially disadvantaged people, but it is
not compulsory. They do have to fulfill certain other criteria than just
employing people from disadvantaged groups. They should behave better
towards their employees; behave better towards their local communities;
they should work with their stakeholders much more than a normal business,
and they agree to channel part of their profits back towards further social
enterprise projects, to support local NGOs and basically use their profits
in a different way.”

Francová also believes that the proposed reforms will serve to guarantee
certain practices and standards:

“Up to now, it was just their decision whether a business wanted to say
they were a social enterprise or not. But there was no institutional
oversight of that. So this law is basically an initiative to create an
official framework.”